FBX Importer Preview

Since the launch of Amazon Lumberyard Beta in February, we’ve been talking to developers, reading emails, and listening to forum posts about features that developers want to see in the engine. One of the most popular requests has been for FBX support. Lumberyard Beta 1.1 introduces the new Lumberyard FBX Importer which allows developers a path to import geometry from their favorite content tools (like Maya, Max, and Blender). The new tool lays the foundation for making an art pipeline that is extensible, easy to use, and allows for fast iteration.

To see a brief overview of the FBX Importer, watch this video:

What can developers expect to see in the FBX Importer?

The FBX Importer enables you to import single-mesh and auto generating material files. We’ve also added support for import rules, so developers have the ability to edit settings such as orientation, translation, and scale and immediately see these changes updated in a level. Developers are also able to author and edit multiple configurations to an FBX. This means that if an artist has an FBX scene with a phonograph, table, and chair, each individual piece of furniture may be extracted as a separate mesh file (.cgf). For a full list of FBX Importer features, please check out the documentation here.

Customers value extensibility so they can more easily add and modify source code to suit their individual needs. Our engineers have written an abstraction layer that allows developers to more easily add support for custom and emerging data formats beyond FBX. For example, if you’re a studio that believes that .obj is the king of all data formats, the data abstraction layer will allow you to more easily extend the importer’s code to add the format type.

What’s next?

We’re just getting started with the FBX Importer, and we’re continuing to tune the tool, improve iteration speed, and add new features. We’ll be including support for importing groups of mesh nodes so artists will be able to be selective about the group nodes they wish to include from an FBX hierarchy. We’ve also heard developers’ requests for support for skins, skeletons, and animation, and we’ve added those items to our list as well.

We appreciate the community interest in the FBX Importer and we look forward to hearing your feedback on the forums!

For nearly 20 years, David Chiapperino has been bringing characters to life with teams of animators, and tech artists and engineers. He has worked on games, cinematics and interactive experiences with companies such as Disney, Respawn Entertainment, Universal, Mattel, and SCEA.